Attack right away?(NLTRN)

[dippy111]

When starting a HU tournament against an unknown, is it better to attack right away with aggressive play, or tighten up and control pot sizes more towards the beginning, until you have a feel for your opponents style/tendancies? I feel that by not playing your game right away, you are passing up the opportunity to gain chips, which is bad. However at the beginning of the match you have limited info on the villain so it may be -EV to commit too many chips to an aggressive play.
What are your guys' thought on the matter?

[jay_shark]

It's much better if you stay aggressive while gauging his reaction to your aggression . Anytime you hold back , you may be costing yourself money in doing so .

[cwar]

This is a great question, when you play a lot HU you will have different levels of aggression (a simple example would be raising OTB 80% of the time as one gear and raising 50% as another) both are profitable gears against a specific kind of villain and probably marginally correct against a large range of villains. When your just sitting down with someone you havent played before you will have to pick a stereotyped villain and use the correct gear vs him. If your playing at the same level constantly it shouldnt take long before you have a very good idea of what to expect from a 'random' at this level.

[Sarahanj]

I actually prefer to start out tight for two reasons. My maingame is usually loose aggressive. If villain starts out aggressive i dont know if he is tight or not so i have to fold. By not committing a lot of chips the first hands i can get a feel for him and not loose any big pots. The other reason is that i dont mind if he thinks i am tighter than i am. By giving him an impression that i am tight i will have an easierr time bullying him out of pots later on.

[Conspiracy]

I usually start out playing my usual 60-80& raise OTB but a little bit tighter then usual from the BB.

[MychCumstien]

I play a bit more conservatively in the beginning as the blinds are so tiny. This doesn't mean i fold a lot, it just means i raise less often, keeping the pots smaller until I see how the villain plays.

Regardless, my personal style of play is actually fairly passive preflop, and hyper-aggro post flop. I like to see a lot of cheap flops, and out play my opponents after the flop.

[handparty]

How much of a consideration is the table image you project? Eg. is it worth starting off over aggressively to give the starting off tight so your bluffs will carry more weight?

Of course it all depends on how much attention the villain pays to you, plenty don't change their style much.

[Raiseren1]

Conservative. I invest less chips, and play smallball. I want so see how my oppenent play, and which hands he checks down and bluffs, before investing a lot of chips. I've found this strategy most effective, but aggression works as well. But by raising more preflop your stack sizes compared to the pot is smaller, which means that variance = higher. So actually raising a lot and much preflop means higher variance, and makes it more of a turbo HU SNG.

[Vinetou]

[ QUOTE ]
I play a bit more conservatively in the beginning as the blinds are so tiny. This doesn't mean i fold a lot, it just means i raise less often, keeping the pots smaller until I see how the villain plays.

Regardless, my personal style of play is actually fairly passive preflop, and hyper-aggro post flop. I like to see a lot of cheap flops, and out play my opponents after the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

This often depends on structure. I prefer your approach in regular blinds (on Stars) and hyperaggressive from the beggining in turbos. In turbos you want to beat your opponent before the blinds reach the level where the game will become a crapshot (although you can be on the +EV side if you use SAGE system and opponent does not

[dboy23]

good thread.

I like to test my opponents in a multitude of ways at the beginning of each match.

I like to see how they respond to constant button raises (start calling more, stay tight, or 3bet lighter).

I like to see how they respond to me raising to 4x from the BB after limps (fold normally, call more, *gasp* LRR).

I also like to see how they react to constant cbets, either peeling, folding a bunch, c/ring a lot, or start donk betting.

Once I know what they tend to do, that info helps me at later blind levels.